Seven signs your phone has been hijacked from heat to bad battery – and the sinister clue your LOCATION is being watched

IF your phone has rubbish battery life and gets hotter than the inside of a McDonald's Apple Pie, you might have been hijacked. Don’t just put it down to your phone’s old age - there’s a chance you’re in real danger. There are loads of subtle signs that your iPhone or Android has been hijacked by hackers. The good news is that you use your phone every day. That means you’re in the best place to notice when something is wrong.

Sure, it might be nothing. But I’m always on the look-out for the danger signs below – and you should be too. If you notice any of them, it’s time to go full Sherlock and start investigating. Sometimes, you can actually “feel” that your phone has been hacked. That’s because often, a hacked phone will be doing stuff in the background. It might be using your device to give fake views to ads (to make money for crooks), or hoovering up your personal info to beam it over the internet, or even recording everything you do. Creepy.

All of this uses power – just like if you yourself were using your phone. So you might notice that your phone is getting warmer than usual for no reason. Maybe it’s running slower, or the battery life is dropping without explanation. All of these issues can have totally normal causes, but they should still set alarm bells ringing. WHAT TO DO. For some easy sleuthing, go into your phone’s battery settings. This works on both iPhone and Android.

Look at the apps using up battery. On iPhone, you can see what’s draining your charge in the background. If an app is working hard in the background and you can’t work out why, it’s a sign that something is very wrong. If you don’t care about the app, just delete it. At worst, you’ll save some battery life – and at best, you’ll avoid dangerous spying. Alright, so you’ve felt your phone. Now look at it. Properly.

Have you noticed any odd changes? For example, have any of your settings mysteriously been tweaked?. Worse still, are you seeing any apps installed that you don’t remember downloading?. Both of those are major red flags that your gadget has been compromised. It’s also possible that someone close to you is the person doing the spying. There are two specific settings that you should look for right away if you’ve got an iPhone.

Go into Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services > Share My Location. This will show a list of anyone that you’re sharing your location with. If someone is on this list, they can watch your every move on a virtual map. Chances are you added the people on the list yourself – but if you didn’t, revoke their access. Secondly, go to Settings > [Name] and scroll down until you start seeing a long list of devices.

These are all the gadgets signed into your Apple account. If someone is signed into your Apple ID, they can not only see your location but almost everything you do. Tap on each device to see the serial number, then check those against the devices you own. If you don’t recognise one, remove it from your account and immediately change your Apple password. It’s important to remember that it might not be a hacker spying on you – but someone close to you...

This could be a friend or family member, a colleague, or someone you see regularly. If you think someone is checking up on your phone, there are some checks you must make right away. This will show you a list of anyone that has constant access to your live location. It's possible that a stalker has added themselves to your list. Remove them (but be aware they'll be able to see their access has been revoked).

Next, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Safety Check. This guides you through a simple process to review, update, and stop your iPhone from sharing info with people or apps. You'll be able to see if anyone is accessing your location, viewing your photos, or logging into your Apple ID. If you're worried, you can tap Emergency Reset to immediately cut off all access. And there's a Quick Exit button at the top-right of the screen that instantly saves your changes and closes the Settings app.

Picture Credit: The Sun / Apple. Otherwise you’re leaving yourself wide open to spying. This clue is a continuation of the one above. If crooks are siphoning info from your phone – or running schemes in the background – then your data usage can mysteriously rise. One way to check if you’re going over on data is to look at your phone bill. But a more useful way is to head into your phone’s data settings.

If you’ve got an iPhone, grab it and go to Settings > Mobile Data. Then scroll down and look at your Mobile Data section – and tap Show All at the bottom. You can then view how much data individual apps have been using. It’s a similar story for Android phones: just go into your phone’s Network settings, and make your way to App Data Usage. If an app that you use all the time on-the-go like YouTube has high data usage, that’s probably fine.